


Along Sharpened Rails So It Hurts More

by beng



Series: Lucky Heart [3]
Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Lupercalia, Translation, Translation from Russian, Valentine's Day, some greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25107469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: “Once, he gave me yellow tulips for Valentine’s Day,” Laura suddenly says, and Sweeney patiently waits, even slightly turns his head towards her. A second ago, he liked tulips. Now he wants to forget their very existence.Translation of KatrinaKeynes' "По заточенным рельсам, чтоб было больней", posted with permission.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Series: Lucky Heart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793143
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Along Sharpened Rails So It Hurts More

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [По заточенным рельсам, чтоб было больней](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17770391) by [KatrinaKeynes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatrinaKeynes/pseuds/KatrinaKeynes). 



Laura disappears inside the large house, which is actually yet another altar, Sweeney can see it clearly. It’s Ostara’s mansion, and this time of the year it is full of Jesuses.

He’s met them before. Some of them were quite okay guys and excellent drinking buddies: always ready to fill up your cup, even if you bring them just a bottle of tap water. Sure, the wine was often so-so, tasting like blood, or, on especially unfortunate days, gone sour. But on especially unfortunate days Sweeney did not have to choose—he’d drink anything to burn his throat and fog his brain.

Sweeney follows a white rabbit. Ostara’s not leaving it to chance: those furry little shits will always lead to her one way or another. Funny, how mortals get used to things that are completely incompatible. Eggs, even chocolate eggs, one could understand, but rabbits? Surely someone must have raised a few awkward questions? In every library, they have this book about a girl who followed a white rabbit and lost her marbles, they call it a literary device and mathematic genius, but Sweeney knows better. The poor thing went bonkers the moment she fell beneath the crust of the world and beheld the mechanisms turning there. Had Sweeney been not a leprechaun—and always by default a little drunk—he’d have gone bonkers a long time ago too. In days past, he’d have been willing to give his right eye for such an opportunity. Or to hang for nine days, pierced by a spear—they say that’s another way to go about achieving things.

Laura and Ostara are both tiny. Sweeney towers a head and a half above them but doesn’t feel superior at all. One of them is life, with the power to make his skin break out in flowers, and then the green hills of Ireland would not be a pleasant memory anymore. The other is death itself, reeking like a crime scene, strong as inevitability and as valuable as the last breath. He’d prefer the dead one to the spring on any day, and that should give him pause, but Sweeney just grimaces when he hears Laura talking about the meaning of life. Yeah, right, her ex is there at the party, among the Sons of God, and isn’t that ironic?

Sweeney himself cannot understand why he’s so anxious. It’s definitely not because in a few seconds that carrion bitch with Superman strength will find out that her death is his fault. It is inevitable. He’s ready for it. So maybe he just generally dislikes it when mortals talk about this mythical (ha-ha) meaning of life. How desperate does one have to be, to only continue living under one’s own self-invented pretexts? Sweeney knows precisely why he does. Maybe that’s why he’s not against Laura Moon knocking him down, nailing him to the wall and freeing him from the need to die in someone else’s war. Actually, he’s not sure what would happen if he were killed by someone with his lucky coin shining in their chest. Maybe then they’d both be stinking and fighting off flies, and watching the world with glassy eyes. Maybe then Sweeney would also see only one light and only one meaning—the shining of a coin in someone’s chest.

Is it worth hoping for another, a much kinder world?

Naaaah. This is not even stuff of fairy tales. Fairy tales hold more truth to them than some evening news. Gods of news lie more than the Liesmith, more than Loki himself, but their skill leaves much room for growth before they can compare. He wonders, would there one day appear a god among this flowery, proud tribe that would offer to compensate losses and return a wasted life? Sweeney has a handful of those. It’s not like he’d start to worship someone. That’s just another useless waste of time: you exchange your faith, your time and everything you are for a false sense of peace. If you’re fortunate, of course, you could gain a bit of extra cunning, extra luck or extra strength. But gods are not eager to share.

Ostara is willing to resurrect someone just because today is her day and she is not in the worst of moods, but even she, who wields the gift of life, is not in a rush to give out anything for free. People, meanwhile, continue dreaming of a selfless and kind god. Hah.

Ultimately, Laura does pin him to a wall. Her hand is on his scrotum—slightly not in the context in which he’d like—and it hurts. Fuck if he knows what’s more painful, the physical aspect, or that Laura Moon refuses to become an ex-wife even after her death. Human vows are such total bullshit. “Till death do us part”, yeah right.

And wait, no, Sweeney would rather dead hands not touch him at all. In no contexts. Her kisses taste like cigarette smoke and dead flesh, she said so herself. Sweeney has not tasted the latter since he came out of the sea with the other Tuath Dé, and he doesn’t want to resurrect memories of war. He just wants to resurrect someone’s (ex!) wife and get his coin back. Right?

Except there is no way to retrieve it. Resurrection is an old trick. A simple one, if there are a few hundred or thousand, or, heck, even just a handful of people who believe in you. If you’re a god. It’s a painful trick, sure, and a bit risky for one’s ego; nevertheless, it’s still simple. But who believes in Laura Moon? Her ex-husband, who still can’t bring himself to believe that all that’s happening is not a dream he’s having within the prison walls he never left?

But she’s still waiting for him. They both are, because Sweeney is mad too, you haven’t forgotten that, right? He may not be a girl from Queen Victoria’s England, but he has already followed a white rabbit. It feels like he even fell through the centre of the earth—fell so long that he’s been falling ever since. Humans sometimes say you can fall into a feeling. Sweeney thinks he would’ve noticed if he’d fallen into anything other than a rabbit hole. Besides, he’s not human.

They are sitting on the floor, backs to the balcony, both too gutted by the meeting with Ostara and the cards laid out on the table. Although, Laura must have a couple more hidden up her sleeve. One of those is an ace, with a picture of a sun that looks like a coin.

“Once, he gave me yellow tulips for Valentine’s Day,” Laura suddenly says, and Sweeney patiently waits, even slightly turns his head towards her. A second ago, he liked tulips. Now he wants to forget their very existence. Leprechauns do love nature, but leprechauns are a fickle lot.

“I’m terribly allergic to them,” Laura continues. Her eyes, dull with fog, dim even further. She’s reminiscing, a corner of her lips tugged up in a smile as if it’s some pleasant memory. Although humans would remember even horrible things with fondness.

“So he’s muttering something about having read that, in the language of flowers, yellow tulips mean ‘I see sunshine in your smile’, and I just can’t stop sneezing. I even got a nosebleed.” She smiles, slightly tilts her head and smacks a fly on her neck. “I should’ve got the message back then already.”

Sweeney doesn’t ask her to clarify. You mustn’t make these kinds of mistakes with humans, but on the other hand, he’s made so many mistakes already—including with humans—that one more is not going to matter.

“Is it true?” Laura suddenly asks, and Sweeney braces himself for another round of discussions about gods and Mr Wednesday. But she suddenly clarifies: “About Saint Valentine?”

And it’s so unexpected that Sweeney snorts before he’s even given it a proper thought.

“Of course, it’s bullshit. A priest betrays the church, and suddenly he’s a saint? That bestseller of yours, with a bunch of different translations, certainly has even crazier stories than that, but back in the day there was no church wedding to begin with.”

Laura is looking at him now, even though her gaze seems to be focused at nothing. It’s a strange feeling. It reminds Sweeney that after death he will become nothing too. Most likely.

“And?” Laura raises her eyebrows.

“In February they were celebrating the Lupercalia. Rome, she-wolf, all that. They sacrificed to the gods and fucked like rabbits. Ostara would’ve loved it. Christians have always tacked their own labels on already existing festivals, just ask Anubis next time. You must have met him."

“Anubis is a jackal, not a wolf.”

“Same shit. Lupercalia. You’ve heard about Hera, right?”

“The one who was constantly wrecking the lives of a bunch of Ancient Greek heroes? And prancing around with peacocks? She and I seem to have a lot in common.”

“Think again, dead wife. Her dear husband had so many children on the side that nobody would’ve blamed her if she decided to cut him in twenty pieces and scatter them to the winds."

Sweeney, of course, has said too much and not what he should have. Lora turns away. Empty talk is not her strong suit, or maybe Sweeney should apologize, but ten minutes ago she’d been ready to tear his balls off, albeit deservedly.

“In Rome Hera was called Juno. It was her festival too. I bet she would’ve paid handsomely to find out what Jupiter-Zeus was allergic to.”

“Allergic to faithfulness,” mutters Laura into the sleeve of her jacket.

“Juno was also called Moneta,” Sweeney suddenly remembers. His fingers are moving as if he’s rolling an imaginary small disc across his knuckles. “Coins were minted in her temples.”

Laura could have replied that Hera would also have been pleased with Valentine’s Day: a river of coins is spent on that day. But instead she glances down at her stitched up chest.

“You just won’t fuck off, will you?” she sighs.

There’s no need for Sweeney to reply, but he does anyway.

“Nope.”

“Good.”  
  
Sweeney could’ve misheard that last bit, he’s mad after all, but behind their backs the sky is suddenly torn open, and Odin has made a poignant speech with special effects worthy of any supervillain. Ostara has taken away the spring, and Sweeney misses it.

On the way to the House on the Rock he’s consoled by the fact that, unlike gods, faerie folk don’t need someone to believe in them as long as somewhere there still exist green hills under which you can dance for days, drink wine and eat pomegranates.

The fact that eventually Laura Moon stops trying to bring her ex-husband to his senses and is instead dragging Sweeney south in search of immortality is not a consolation. Nope.

Perhaps in another, a much kinder world they would have danced on a Lupercalia, with furs wrapped around their waists, breathless from wine and kisses, praising Juno and not thinking of faith as a cheap bargaining chip. Perhaps, they would have been tricking the mortals seeking the rainbow or sneakily shoved four-leaf clover down the collars of those that have lost everything, sharing their luck much more eagerly than Ostara shares life. But it’s better to not believe in such worlds. Especially right before the Apocalypse.


End file.
